Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grassoe from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: The Trump campaign has launched a legal onslaught over vote
Speaker 1: counts in battleground states, filing at least six lawsuits since
Speaker 1: election day to challenge the ballot counts whose suits have
Speaker 1: already been dismissed, and the question is whether any of
Speaker 1: the cases has a real chance to effect the final count.
Speaker 1: On Friday, Republican National Committee Chair Rona McDaniels said the
Speaker 1: RNC has deployed legal teams to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: citing concerns about so far unproven claims of voter fraud.
Speaker 1: We will fight every regularity to the very last, because
Speaker 1: every voter deserves their vote to be counted, and they
Speaker 1: deserve to know whether or not these irregularities mean fraud,
Speaker 1: and we have to figure this out. But Philadelphia Mayor
Speaker 1: Jim Kenney said the president's team has not produced any
Speaker 1: evidence to back up his claims of fraud. I think
Speaker 1: what the president needs to do is Frankie put his
Speaker 1: big boy pants on. He needs to acknowledge the fact
Speaker 1: that he lost, and he needs to congratulate the winner,
Speaker 1: just as Jimmy Carter did, just as George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush did, and frankly, just as Al Gore did, and
Speaker 1: stop this and let us move forward as a country.
Speaker 1: My guest is election law expert Richard Brofald, professor at
Speaker 1: Columbia Law School. Rich let's look at some of these cases.
Speaker 1: Starting with Michigan, the Trump campaign tried to stop the
Speaker 1: count and it claimed it hadn't been given meaningful access
Speaker 1: to the counting locations to observe the process. A judge
Speaker 1: already rejected that is that claim then dead. I think
Speaker 1: unless the campaign can provide evidence that shows that access
Speaker 1: was not provided, it is always a challenge to overturn
Speaker 1: the decision of the judge who was on the scene.
Speaker 1: And unless they can actually provide evidence that they were
Speaker 1: somehow not given the access of the law entitles them too,
Speaker 1: and that that might have affected the count and that
Speaker 1: the result in the particular places which would have affected
Speaker 1: the overall accounts, I think it's it's a very high
Speaker 1: hurdle for them to overcome. And another lawsuit that was
Speaker 1: dismissed was in Georgia, and there they claim that a
Speaker 1: Republican pole observer in Chatham County witness laid ballots being
Speaker 1: illegally added to a stack of on time absentee ballots.
Speaker 1: The judge just threw that out, saying there's no evidence.
Speaker 1: So that's also over right, and it's extremely unlikely, between
Speaker 1: very unlikely and almost nearly impossible, never say never for
Speaker 1: a higher level court to overturn a child judge or
Speaker 1: a district court. Judges of assessment of the evidence of
Speaker 1: the judge said there's no evidence. That almost surely means
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that any higher court would be interested in.
Speaker 1: In Nevada, the lawsuit alleges that ten thousand votes were
Speaker 1: illegally cast by people who no longer reside in the state.
Speaker 1: If people no longer reside in the state, are they
Speaker 1: still allowed to vote if intend to come back. I
Speaker 1: guess that depends on what you mean by reside. In
Speaker 1: other words, if somebody has temporarily moved because for example,
Speaker 1: they want to go to their vacation home which is
Speaker 1: in a lower COVID area, there's still residents of the state.
Speaker 1: So I mean they have to first show that there
Speaker 1: are people who fall into any category of having movement,
Speaker 1: and I've got to show that the person has actually
Speaker 1: relocated as opposed to staying temporarily somewhere else. People it's
Speaker 1: a big deal to give up residency if they still
Speaker 1: maintain an address, if they're paying their utility bills, and
Speaker 1: then they haven't less the state. I wonder how they
Speaker 1: even came up with that number, Like what kind of
Speaker 1: research or what would have shown that? Right? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the question. They've been bringing a lot
Speaker 1: of lawsuits without much evidence, or maybe without any evidence.
Speaker 1: They've been They've been hurling a lot of accusations, but
Speaker 1: so far the courts who have been hearing these cases
Speaker 1: have been pretty unreceptive because they don't see any evidence.
Speaker 1: So I think they actually would have to come up
Speaker 1: with some specific people and show that those people are
Speaker 1: no longer there, and I haven't heard that yet. The
Speaker 1: cases that are getting the most attention are those in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania for a couple of reasons, the importance of Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: as a swing state and the fact that the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court already decided in a fourd or four decision
Speaker 1: to leave in place the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision allowing
Speaker 1: ballots received three days after election day but postmarked by
Speaker 1: election day to be counted. State officials have told counties
Speaker 1: to separate out those late arriving ballots, but some of
Speaker 1: the conservative justice has left the door open to reconsidering
Speaker 1: the question after the election. The Trump campaign is also
Speaker 1: suing in Pennsylvania with an access argument, again saying their
Speaker 1: representatives were being denied reasonable access to monitor the counting
Speaker 1: of votes. In Philadelphia, the vote counting is live streaming,
Speaker 1: So what kind of transparency are they looking for? Once again,
Speaker 1: you can make a statement, but then you actually have
Speaker 1: to say not only what you're looking for, but what
Speaker 1: you're legally entitled to. But they are entitled. Each state
Speaker 1: has has its own laws that say who is supposed
Speaker 1: to be present when both are accounted. Typically, and I
Speaker 1: think this is the case in Pennsylvania, there should be
Speaker 1: representatives of both parties. My understanding is that that has
Speaker 1: been the case. Trump campaign one am very minor victory
Speaker 1: when they were allowed to get a little bit closer
Speaker 1: to the action while still maintaining six feet of kind
Speaker 1: of COVID required public health distance. So they didn't win
Speaker 1: a minor victory there in terms of how close they
Speaker 1: can get to watch the both counting. But I don't
Speaker 1: think any court has said that there's been any situation
Speaker 1: in which there wasn't the required bipartisan observation of the
Speaker 1: whole accounting. So again, it's it's one thing to say
Speaker 1: there needs to be more transparency. Is something else to
Speaker 1: say the law requires the following and they haven't given
Speaker 1: it to us, and that I have not heard. I've
Speaker 1: been talking to Columbia Law School professor Richard Revault. Do
Speaker 1: you think the Pennsylvania's Supreme Court went outside the bounds
Speaker 1: of its authority in granting that three days tension? That
Speaker 1: turns a lot on what their authority is, to be honest,
Speaker 1: and that's actually, in some ways the issue that is
Speaker 1: lurking beneath the surface of the Supreme Court. If it's
Speaker 1: an issue the Supreme Court wants to take on. I
Speaker 1: don't think the Pennsylvania Supreme Court went beyond its authority
Speaker 1: as the highest court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in
Speaker 1: charge of interpreting the statutes of the state in light
Speaker 1: of the state constitution, and the state constitution has a
Speaker 1: strong protection of the right to vote. So I don't
Speaker 1: think there is much doubt that in terms that they
Speaker 1: were within their balance of looking at their statutes in
Speaker 1: light of the state constitution and in the light of
Speaker 1: the situation the COVID created postal Service create the lays
Speaker 1: created situation. The question that's been asked by a number
Speaker 1: of the justices and is being pressed by Republicans in
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign is were they actually allowed to look
Speaker 1: at their state constitution or they were they required to
Speaker 1: look only at the text of the state statute. Texas
Speaker 1: state statute does set a specific deadline by which ballots
Speaker 1: must be received the Pennsylvania Court when other than that,
Speaker 1: the problem is, the argument is being made that they're
Speaker 1: not that. Under the US Constitution, the state legislature is
Speaker 1: the body that sets the rules for the selection of
Speaker 1: presidential electors, and they set a specific deadline for the
Speaker 1: receipt of S and T ballots, and so therefore, as
Speaker 1: a matter of US constitutional law, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Speaker 1: couldn't use its state constitution to you know, extend that deadline.
Speaker 1: That's the question that would go to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: if the case goes to the Supreme Court. My understanding
Speaker 1: and is that uh Biden is winning Pennsylvania without actually
Speaker 1: having to look at those later on ballots. Uh as
Speaker 1: you know, you may recall when the Supreme Court declined
Speaker 1: to intervene in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania a trainey general in
Speaker 1: the secretary that comwell right after that said we are
Speaker 1: going to keep any later arriving ballots separate so that
Speaker 1: if the Supreme Court does intervene, that we can we
Speaker 1: can count these these question ballots separately. And if there's
Speaker 1: you know, and so it won't affect the ballot that
Speaker 1: did come in on time. And so, um, it's not
Speaker 1: one reason the Supreme Court might not take the case.
Speaker 1: But we don't know is it might not make a difference.
Speaker 1: The Trump campaign is asking for a recount in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and possibly in Georgia. In most states are recounts triggered
Speaker 1: automatically when there's a certain margin between the two candidates.
Speaker 1: Most states have an automatic recount rule, and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: one percent and sometimes it's a half of a percent.
Speaker 1: But certainly, right, certainly the numbers in Georgia are so
Speaker 1: close that uh, it would pass any rule for an
Speaker 1: automatic recount. So who pays for the recounts? Well, again,
Speaker 1: there are different states have different rules on this, and
Speaker 1: it actually turns on how close it is. So that
Speaker 1: if it's if it's very close, and I think the
Speaker 1: state pays for it. If it's if it's uh, if
Speaker 1: the results are wider than a certain margin, and I
Speaker 1: think the party asking for the recount pays for it.
Speaker 1: As far as my research has taken me, there's never
Speaker 1: been a recount that resulted in more than a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred votes either way. Typically there is the numbers
Speaker 1: changed very narrowly. And as I recalled, there was a
Speaker 1: recount in Wisconsin four years ago when Trump won by
Speaker 1: about twenty votes, and the recount resulted in giving him
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty votes. More So, right now, the
Speaker 1: margin between Trump and Biden, it was conceivable that the
Speaker 1: numbers will move a little bit. But um, in the
Speaker 1: vast majority of recounts, the results don't change, especially with
Speaker 1: a margin as big as twenty thousands. Even in the
Speaker 1: bushbeg Gol litigation in Florida twenty years ago, I think
Speaker 1: um the margin. I think Bush's margin went from something
Speaker 1: like votes to something like uh votes uh five hundred
Speaker 1: something votes. The numbers changed, but they changed by a
Speaker 1: few hundred um, even when they were six million votes cast.
Speaker 1: So would you character is all the lawsuits as nuisance
Speaker 1: lawsuits or something more than a nuisance lawsuit. I think
Speaker 1: they are legally, I think they're nuisance lawsuits. I think
Speaker 1: their purposes less about the law and more about public
Speaker 1: relations and about kind of maintaining um, the posture that
Speaker 1: there's something wrong here. So far, all of them have
Speaker 1: either been dismissed or the one victory that I'm aware
Speaker 1: of was on a very very minor point that will
Speaker 1: have no effect on the income. But I think it's
Speaker 1: all about on a project of trying to cast doubt
Speaker 1: on the legitimacy of the election by filing as many
Speaker 1: lawsuits as they can as they can and maybe also
Speaker 1: delay I mean the law. If they can delay the account,
Speaker 1: they can maintain this UH, the the the illusion that
Speaker 1: there's something wrong here and keep the turmoil going UM
Speaker 1: and maybe in the hope that something happens. But so far, UM,
Speaker 1: there is UH. The lawsuits have been pretty much baseless
Speaker 1: and on inciated UH. And the one time I think
Speaker 1: they went a victory was on a fairly minor point. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking of casting doubt, what's your reaction to President Trump's
Speaker 1: statement on Thursday night that there were illegal ballots and
Speaker 1: the election was being stolen, and can you lend any
Speaker 1: credence to his claims, you know there since he presented
Speaker 1: no evidence, I think the answer is no. I mean,
Speaker 1: there have been um no evidence of a stunt, want
Speaker 1: to say, any illegal votes, but there's only been no
Speaker 1: evidence of any illegal any illegal votes that come even
Speaker 1: remotely close to affecting the outcome in any state. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that there was never any
Speaker 1: illegal votes cast on either side, but they have never
Speaker 1: um the camp, the Trump campaign has not come forward
Speaker 1: evidence of any number of illegal votes sufficient to affect
Speaker 1: the outcome in any state. CNN is reporting that Trump
Speaker 1: has told people he has no plans to in seed
Speaker 1: even if his path to victory appears to be blocked.
Speaker 1: Is there any requirement or necessity for a president to concede. No,
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of courtesy and kind of the
Speaker 1: dignity of the system about a loser concedes. But no,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to concede if he loses. Eventually, the
Speaker 1: each state will certify its results of the election, and
Speaker 1: the certified and the results a result in the the
Speaker 1: selection of a set of electors UH and on December
Speaker 1: those electors will vote UM, and on January six, those
Speaker 1: electors votes to be officially counted in Congress. And there's
Speaker 1: not much he can do. There's nothing he can do
Speaker 1: about that. We've been talking about how you know, it's
Speaker 1: been taking a longer time for the states to count
Speaker 1: with all the mail in voting. But tell us about
Speaker 1: December eight than this safe Harvard deadline, and when we
Speaker 1: can stop being concerned about stay sending in different ballots
Speaker 1: of electors. Right so under UM, Under there's something called
Speaker 1: the Electoral Count Act, which Congress passed in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century to deal with disputed elections. UM. Congress has
Speaker 1: promised that if a state completes all of completes its
Speaker 1: count and and declares a result, and does so under
Speaker 1: laws that existed before election day, if the state does
Speaker 1: all that by six days before its electors are scheduled
Speaker 1: to meet, the Congress has promised it will honor that result.
Speaker 1: So UM, all the electors are scheduled to meet on
Speaker 1: December fourteen. That's the day Congress has set for the
Speaker 1: meeting of the Electoral College. So uh, six days before
Speaker 1: that is is December eight, And that's become known as
Speaker 1: the say harbor day. Um, if by December eight a
Speaker 1: state has resolved all the disputes that maybe maybe with
Speaker 1: respect to who on the presidential election of that state,
Speaker 1: and has declared you a certified winner, um, then the
Speaker 1: Congress has promised to honor that result. So finally, just
Speaker 1: give me your thoughts about the election and the allegations
Speaker 1: of fraud. Has the integrity of the system, has the
Speaker 1: confidence in the system been damaged? Those are two different questions.
Speaker 1: I think actually the integrity the system has been maintained
Speaker 1: through the incredible work of state and county elections commissioners
Speaker 1: who have really been under incredible amounts of stress through
Speaker 1: this whole process. That the shift to massive amounts of
Speaker 1: mail in balance is unprecedented, The attacks on the system
Speaker 1: are unprecedented. You know, the challenge to find poll workers
Speaker 1: and to run safe and sanitary polling stations is unprecedented.
Speaker 1: So I think, actually it's a rickety system. We need
Speaker 1: a better system. But in fact I think we are
Speaker 1: seeing that the system works. The elections offices rose incredibly
Speaker 1: to the challenge. But has the legitimacy of the system
Speaker 1: been under my for sure, this relentless trumpeat of criticisms
Speaker 1: by the President and his allies. This consummates insistence that
Speaker 1: there's fraud. Surely many movies Americans have been persuaded that
Speaker 1: there's something wrong here, and that's the terrible thing. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being on the Bloomberg Law Show. Rich that's Richard Brofald,
Speaker 1: a professor, Columbia Law School. The Trump campaign has filed
Speaker 1: lawsuits in the battleground states of Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and said it will seek a recount in Wisconsin. On
Speaker 1: Thursday night, President Trump once again alleged wide scale voter
Speaker 1: fraud and has stolen election without proof, and he promised
Speaker 1: continued legal action. If you count the legal votes, I
Speaker 1: easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can
Speaker 1: try to steal the election from us. Trump's lawsuits have
Speaker 1: had very limited sick says so far, none of alter
Speaker 1: the race is trajectory, and none of the remaining suits
Speaker 1: appear to be game changers. They're mainly focused on some
Speaker 1: aspects of the processing of mail in ballots, but not
Speaker 1: on enough ballots to alter the outcome of the race.
Speaker 1: Joining me as election law expert, Justin Levitt, a professor
Speaker 1: at Loyola Law School. How would you characterize these lawsuits
Speaker 1: by the Trump campaign? I would say some of them
Speaker 1: look like they might have merit. The facts are a
Speaker 1: little bit hard to get your head around. Some of
Speaker 1: them look like they don't really have any merit at all.
Speaker 1: But all of them appeared to be over really minor
Speaker 1: procedural things like standing a bit closer when you can
Speaker 1: observe the count order, having you know, extra access to
Speaker 1: video feed that they didn't have before, or something like that.
Speaker 1: Nothing that seems too far in any way meaningfully infuence
Speaker 1: the integrity of the count or in any way indicates
Speaker 1: any sort of capacity to meaningfully change the results. So then,
Speaker 1: what's the strategy? You can look behind the lawsuits. What's
Speaker 1: the strategy of the Trump campaign here? It's hard to know.
Speaker 1: Part of it may be instinct. If a doctor would
Speaker 1: strike Donald Trump on the knee with a rubber mallet,
Speaker 1: he'd probably file a lawsuit. That's the auto response. Part
Speaker 1: of it may be that the President had tweeted we're
Speaker 1: going to litigate, and a bunch of people are now
Speaker 1: scrambling to make better reality. That wouldn't be the first
Speaker 1: time that a tweet or a promise at a rally
Speaker 1: turned into some fairly chroxotic action. It might be that
Speaker 1: this is a mechanism to keep raising money. That would
Speaker 1: not be the first time that litigation, postal and litigation,
Speaker 1: even if it had no reasonable shot at winning, were
Speaker 1: used as a fundraising device. And it might be just
Speaker 1: a contribution to the messaging of the day, an attempt
Speaker 1: to cast down on the legitim to the elections because
Speaker 1: there are all these lawsuits quote unquote, I want to
Speaker 1: say mostly observers who are looking at this don't think
Speaker 1: the lawsuits amount to much. But for the public he
Speaker 1: can say we filed suit in X number of places,
Speaker 1: and perhaps that further is the argument that he's attempting
Speaker 1: to make to deal with the lane to see election itself.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's working, and I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: what he pursued the endgame today. I can't think of
Speaker 1: any other reason other than those because the lawsuits, as is,
Speaker 1: not only don't they stand a chance of changing reself,
Speaker 1: they're not designed for that. So is there any problem
Speaker 1: in some of the lawsuits seeming to have a contradictory
Speaker 1: strategy where you're trying to stop the vote count in
Speaker 1: some of them, and you're trying to get a recount
Speaker 1: in other states. Is there a contradictory strategy that makes
Speaker 1: a difference. The court certainly don't like inconsistent claims. Now,
Speaker 1: it might well be that in one state the allegation
Speaker 1: is that the count should stop ps there has to
Speaker 1: be a why behind that. You can't just march an
Speaker 1: important say stop the count. There's gotta be a reason,
Speaker 1: And there has been absolutely no reason to think that
Speaker 1: any of the should stop so far. State law requires
Speaker 1: that the ballots that arrives validly from valid voters be counted.
Speaker 1: So I want to be abundantly clear. Just wandering in
Speaker 1: the court saying stop the count isn't a thing, and
Speaker 1: it's certainly not a thing the courts will listen to
Speaker 1: or have listened to. It might be that the facts,
Speaker 1: the different facts, facts different than what we have now,
Speaker 1: could theoretically lead to different actions in different states. The
Speaker 1: courts don't look at strategies, They look at what they
Speaker 1: had in front of them. That said, it is difficult
Speaker 1: to discern what the strategy might be, and courts do
Speaker 1: care about saying inconsistent things in their own case or
Speaker 1: in similarly situated cases, and I haven't seen anything other
Speaker 1: than opportunism that amount to any sort of rationale about
Speaker 1: why different votes need to be counted in some places
Speaker 1: and not in others. And by the way, I don't
Speaker 1: think the courts are listening to the tweets. Arch of
Speaker 1: the Press two pr that the Trump is trying to generate.
Speaker 1: Courts thus far this year has acted like courts. I
Speaker 1: haven't always agreed with them. Sometimes I think they get
Speaker 1: the law right. Sometimes I think they get a lot wrong.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I have a different impression of the facts than
Speaker 1: they may have. But the courts have been remarkably consistent
Speaker 1: the entire year at waving off claims that are no
Speaker 1: more than wild gesticulation, all caps, exclamation points. Judges have
Speaker 1: been acting like judges. That's what we expect. But I
Speaker 1: think we should also expect that to continue. And so
Speaker 1: until there's a lawsuits that actually shows real facts that
Speaker 1: entitles the Trump campaign is some different outcome. I frankly
Speaker 1: don't think that the lawsuits are going to yield much.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the some of the lawsuits
Speaker 1: and the allegations because there are several lawsuits in some
Speaker 1: sites that are complaining about as you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: the process for ballot observers or the way that ballot
Speaker 1: observers are getting to observe the counting. Do they go
Speaker 1: very far after the count? I mean, can they come
Speaker 1: back and say, after the count is in and the
Speaker 1: state has been declared, well, we didn't get to watch this,
Speaker 1: so these don't count. No. The short version is you
Speaker 1: have to actually have evidence that the law was broken,
Speaker 1: that there was a statutory or constitutionalization that balance were
Speaker 1: not counted that should have been, or that that we're
Speaker 1: counted that should not have been. And simply I didn't
Speaker 1: get to stand close enough. Isn't anything that actually jeopardizes
Speaker 1: the integrity of the any of the balance. And that's
Speaker 1: part of why I say some of these cases on
Speaker 1: their own merits are probably worthwhile. If they've been excluded
Speaker 1: from a particular location that they have a right to
Speaker 1: be in, then a court maywell grant they're right to
Speaker 1: be in that location. But the simple fact that there's
Speaker 1: been a minor procedural slip up and who's allowed to
Speaker 1: observe from where? And I want to be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure in all of the cases that have been filed,
Speaker 1: because there has been slip ups. Some of the youth
Speaker 1: have been actually contested where the campaign has come in
Speaker 1: and said we're not allowed in the next place, and
Speaker 1: the city has said, you've been in next place for
Speaker 1: a couple of days, of course you're allowed there. It's fine.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to I don't want to assume
Speaker 1: the conclusion that just because they're saying it's been included,
Speaker 1: that's actually true. But even if it were true, that
Speaker 1: doesn't actually impute the intevity the ballots themselves, and so
Speaker 1: that is not in fact going to be accepted by court.
Speaker 1: It's a reason to stop the count, change the results,
Speaker 1: or throughout any single ballots. In Georgia, they claim that
Speaker 1: a Republican pole observer in Chatham County witness late ballots
Speaker 1: being illegally added to a stack of on time absentee ballots.
Speaker 1: Would that they said may have and in those wiggle
Speaker 1: roads is a lot of um meaning. So it is
Speaker 1: true that late ballots, ballots that arrived after the period
Speaker 1: designated by state law should not be counted um. It's
Speaker 1: also true that a handful of those who's not going
Speaker 1: to either change or incune the results as a whole um,
Speaker 1: But it is often the case that observers who arrive
Speaker 1: looking for ms conduct misinterpret what they see, and so
Speaker 1: I don't take as a given it might be that
Speaker 1: what they saw was somebody adding a ballot that should
Speaker 1: not have been added. That is possible. But when you
Speaker 1: see in a lawsuit may have or possibly, what that
Speaker 1: often means is I saw something I didn't like and
Speaker 1: now going to make a maybe and that's something I
Speaker 1: didn't like me or may not be an actual factual
Speaker 1: claim of LEO wrong joining. There are several suits in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and the one that seemed to be most concerning for
Speaker 1: Democrats is the Trump campaign asking to intervene at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court in the case that's already been at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court involving Pennsylvania, adding some days to the time
Speaker 1: that ballots can get in and still be counted. Um
Speaker 1: and the sure. But so that is true, UM that
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. There is a case in the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and that makes that case particularly prominent. But I don't
Speaker 1: know that we know how many ballots are concerned in
Speaker 1: that case. And I have to say this really clearly,
Speaker 1: that case doesn't affect any ballot that was received by
Speaker 1: Tuesday not a one, So I don't know what the
Speaker 1: results are. We still haven't done all the counting again,
Speaker 1: but the most that that case could do is set
Speaker 1: aside ballots that had not arrived by Tuesday. And it
Speaker 1: might well be that the results of the election in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania doesn't turn on ballots arrived after tuesdays. I also
Speaker 1: want to ask you about this about the post office case,
Speaker 1: Judge Sullivan is said something like, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to get them in to be counted. Can those ballots
Speaker 1: still be counted? I mean, suppose they find the ballots
Speaker 1: and they get them to the election places, and in
Speaker 1: most states it's going to be too late, isn't it
Speaker 1: to get those In many states it will be too late.
Speaker 1: Now in some states it's not if the ballot was
Speaker 1: postmarked um on time. Different states that you know, have
Speaker 1: different rules about when the ballots have to be received.
Speaker 1: We One of the things that I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think the Post Office may but hasn't been cleared from
Speaker 1: the dctification so far, is how many ballots we're talking about.
Speaker 1: We know there were several hundred thousand nationwide that weren't
Speaker 1: processed as of a couple of days before election day.
Speaker 1: But that's very different thinking that there are a couple
Speaker 1: hundred thousand ballots outstanding, much less outstanding in any battleground states,
Speaker 1: much less outstanding in any of the battleground states where
Speaker 1: the deadlines already passed. Um, it may be a very
Speaker 1: small number that actually still remain in postal service custody.
Speaker 1: Ah in any way impacting a state that has a
Speaker 1: deadline authority pass. I just don't know. Um. And so
Speaker 1: the significance of the post office case, I think turns
Speaker 1: quite a bit on how many ballots we're talking about.
Speaker 1: If it's a handful, it's not really gonna matter. Just
Speaker 1: in both sides set up legal war rooms to plan
Speaker 1: for a range of contingencies, and some leading law firms
Speaker 1: have been advising both the Trump and Biden campaigns. So
Speaker 1: what does it say that Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer,
Speaker 1: is the one out front on these lawsuits. I will
Speaker 1: say that of the many lawyers that the President has
Speaker 1: had involved in the White House and his personal capacity
Speaker 1: on his campaign, Rudy has not proven to be the
Speaker 1: most reliable um for the president or for the public.
Speaker 1: And so uh, and that's a shame thankly. It's this
Speaker 1: is quite a different turn from his turn as Mayor
Speaker 1: of New York from his turn as the U S Attorney.
Speaker 1: Um I would say of late uh, it's not his
Speaker 1: legal acumen that most people are noticing when Rudy goes
Speaker 1: on TV or appears important. Um So, I think that
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily reflect the quality or skill of other
Speaker 1: lawyers who may be working for the campaign. But I
Speaker 1: will say that the lawsuits the campaign has filed has
Speaker 1: been of markedly mixed quality. I don't know whether that's
Speaker 1: Rudy or somebody else, but again, I haven't seen anything
Speaker 1: from the campaign that would indicates a lawstoot at the
Speaker 1: moment likely to change any of the results in any
Speaker 1: of the states that still have results that are unclear.
Speaker 1: That's Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School. And that's it
Speaker 1: for the edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. And remember
Speaker 1: you could always get the latest legal news on our
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on iTunes, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: or Bloomberg dot com slash podcast Slash Law. I'm June Grasso.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us, and please tune into
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight. Attend PM Eastern right
Speaker 1: here on Bloomberg Radio